David Neiwert FACEBOOK
I have a lot of friends who are Sanders supporters, and you all may know that while I’m in sync with Bernie’s ideals, I remain skeptical that he’d be able to enact them. Even more deeply, I am skeptical that he would be able to win in November. Moreover, given today’s turn of events, in which the Republicans in the Senate made clear that they are going to hold Scalia’s seat hostage to the election outcome, electability is going to have to be the bottom line in this year’s vote. We cannot let a Republican win the White House and still expect to have a democracy.
I know you all will be happy to trot out all those polls showing Sanders outperforming Clinton in matchups with any of the GOP candidates. But those are early polls, taken now. I’ve been around politics a long time, long enough to know full well that those polls are illusory — the shape of the discourse, both in the media and the public, shifts dramatically once it reaches general-election territory. And the truth is that the Right Wing Media Hate Machine has not even yet begun to dig in with Bernie.
That’s by design: They WANT Sanders to be the nominee, so of course they are holding their fire. Whereas they have given Clinton their best shot for years and have pretty much exhausted their weapon cache against her, they haven’t even gotten started yet with Bernie. Trust me: There are stacks of opposition research, videos of Bernie saying stuff they will portray as crazy and commie-like, writings and other material that will be used to make him out to be an America-hating radical communist, come the general election.
My observation, from having seen firsthand how poorly Bernie handled the Black Lives Matter protesters in both Phoenix and Seattle, is that he is almost certain to wither under this kind of fire. I for one am inclined to back the battle-tested warhorse who remains popular with much of the public in spite of the vicious attacks on her now dating back two decades. I think Clinton is far more likely to win in November because she not only has been through the wars, she is experienced at firing back. Anyone who watched her before the House Benghazi witch-hunt committee knows that already.
If that makes me a corporate shill and a whore, then so be it. But I would be interested in thoughtful rejoinders to this point.
